By no means do I think the Soviets were any better. Actually, I feel both governments were just as responsible for supporting brutal dictators. Ho Chi Minh was not better than Diem by any means; the US simply should not have been there given that it was a nationalist struggle more than a political struggle. Misjudgment of history. The US certainly did right in helping South Korea and various other governments. You haven’t argued that the track record of US-supported dictators is better - in several cases it’s much worse, which brings me to the fact that policies should take into account what would be better for the people, which was usually not the case in Latin America. It was about the Monroe Doctrine - Latin America was the US’ bitch and no one else’s. I’m not saying Castro is my pal or that the Sandinistas didn’t do bad things to the Miskito. I’m saying compared to other countries in the region the people benefitted more under their policies. And, yes, the Sandinista government was a complex entity that was not Stalinist and had some capitalist elements unlike Cuba. In some cases the US did well, in others they didn’t. Other countries have done far more brutal things of course. Anyway, I’ll address other points later.
Someone is a bit morally confused.
[quote]Actually, I feel both governments were just as responsible for supporting brutal dictators. Ho Chi Minh was not better than Diem by any means[/quote];
We are both equal. No one is better or worse. The communists who caused a massive refugee flow and killed hundreds of thousands were the moral equivalent of Diem?
Bullshit. This is the standard “answer” by the Left, but that is simply not true. It was about communism more than nationalism.
The misjudgement of history was when enough people were convinced that it was just a nationalist struggle. That is when we disengaged. That was the mistake.
How is Korea different? Same dictators in the South. Same communist agression. Why was South Korea not a case of “nationalism” but Vietnam was?
I would say that given what we had to work with our dictators were better than their dictators and given that communism has now failed all over the world, it vindicates our fight against it. Now that we know how awful it was, we should be very glad that we won.
That is your simplistic interpretation of it. Nice touch with the “bitch” part. I am sure that is how most Latins feel about the US. That is why they want us to be their sugar daddy. Right.
Bully for you.
Really, then why is Cuba one of the poorest countries in the Western hemisphere. It used to be one of the richest. Also, why then with all these “benefits” did the Nicaraguans still vote the Sandinistas out of power? Cuba stood up to the US for more than 45 years. The Sandinistas folded in a couple? Make sense to you? Unless of course, those “developments” and “accomplishments” were not so sound or even real after all? Do you think the Sandinistas might have exaggerated their track record? Maybe?
Right. That is why they called themselves communist. That is why they adopted the party platform and used the party playbook for controlling the population, running the economy, spewing out propaganda that while so egregiously bad and obvious still has people like you fooled? Christ.
Wow. Like that is so deep man. But OVERALL what is the US track record? Western Europe. East Asia. What is the communist track record? Do you really think that they can compare? If so, why is it that communism failed everywhere while those nations that were under the US umbrella prospered and became wealthy and eventually freer and more democratic?
Understatement of the day.
I can hardly wait.
This reminded me of, oh, you know, someone that post regularly on this forum. Perhaps, just another fan of Susan Sontag?
Maybe?
[quote]According to her, “the power structure derives its credibility, its legitimacy, its energies from the dehumanization of the individuals who operate it. The people staffing IBM and General Motors, and the Pentagon, and United Fruit are the living dead.” Since the counterculture is not strong enough to overthrow IBM, the Pentagon, etc., it must opt for subversion. “Rock, grass, better orgasms, freaky clothes, grooving on nature–really grooving on anything–unfits, maladapts a person for the American way of life.” And here is where the Cubans come in: they enjoy this desirable “new sensibility” naturally, possessing as they do a “southern spontaneity which we feel our own too white, death-ridden culture denies us. . . . The Cubans know a lot about spontaneity, gaiety, sensuality and freaking out. They are not linear, desiccated creatures of print culture.”
Indeed not: supine, desiccated creatures of a Communist tyranny would be more like it, though patronizing honky talk about “southern spontaneity” doubtless made things seem much better when this was written. In the great contest for writing the most fatuous line of political drivel, Sontag is always a contender. This essay contains at least two gems: after ten years, she writes, “the Cuban revolution is astonishingly free of repression and bureaucratization”; even better perhaps, is this passing remark delivered in parentheses: “No Cuban writer has been or is in jail, or is failing to get his work published.” Readers wishing to make a reality check should consult Paul Hollander’s classic study Political Pilgrims: Western Intellectuals in Search of the Good Society, which cites Sontag’s claim and then lists, in two or three pages, some of the many writers and artists who have been jailed, tortured, or executed by Castro’s spontaneous gaiety.
Sontag concocted a similar fairy tale when she went to Vietnam in 1968 courtesy of the North Vietnamese government. Her long essay “Trip to Hanoi” (1968) is another classic in the literature of political mendacity. Connoisseurs of the genre will especially savor Sontag’s observation that the real problem for the North Vietnamese is that they “aren’t good enough haters.” Their fondness for Americans, she explains, keeps getting in the way of the war effort.
They genuinely care about the welfare of the hundreds of captured American pilots and give them bigger rations than the Vietnamese population gets, “because they’re bigger than we are,” as a Vietnamese army officer told me, “and they’re used to more meat than we are.” People in North Vietnam really do believe in the goodness of man . . . and in the perennial possibility of rehabilitating the morally fallen.
It would be interesting to know what Senator John McCain, a prisoner of war who was brutally tortured by the North Vietnamese, had to say about this little fantasia[/quote]
More at the link below.
:bravo: I knew I could count on you to use the conventional ‘communist/terrorist/etc. versus capitalist/good guy/etc.’ dichotomy as the only means of understanding world politics. Your inability to differentiate between Korean and Vietnamese history and the differences between both the Communist movements in both countries is proof of the Gunsmoke hallucination you call reality. The Koreans did not have a historic struggle of liberation from the West. Of course to expect Republicans to understand historic realities or read any history not written by right-wing writers is like expecting Bush to open his own coconuts without help.
Regarding Cuba, you assume that their poverty is completely their own fault and the massive economic pressure the US is using against Cuba doesn’t figure into things. If you’re one of the saps who believe the embargo is about tyranny, you can look at the active trade conducted with past dictatorships in the region. Regarding Nicaragua you fail to remember the 1981 elections in which Daniel Ortega was elected; that election did have international observers and was just as, if not more fair, than the Bush/Gore elections awhile back. The real reason Chamorro won was not ‘Sandinista brutality’ as the right-wing press explained but because US used economic bullying.
Thanks for making me a believer!
Okay laugh away but please explain to me why the Korean example was not a matter of nationalism. The country had just emerged from a tough period of Japanese rule. How was that different? Then, it is perhaps not me but you who is the mistaken one for assuming that Vietnam was a nationalist not communist struggle. I have seen much of this made in the leftwing press but then please account for the fact that Ho Chi Minh and ALL his major supporters and followers were all communists and had been since the 1920s. If it were a nationalist struggle, where were the capitalists who wanted to be free? Why was it only communists?
Cuba is free to trade with all other nations. Why would not being able to trade with the US be so devastating to it? Most products are completely fungible. Hence if you sell your sugar to nation A or your oil to nation B, it does not matter if you cannot sell to nation C since your sales to nations A & B are still possible and affect the prices of goods for all markets. Would you like to try explaining that to me again. Why is Cuba’s poverty attributable to the US embargo?
Really? Got a link for that? Who were the international observers? And if the Sandinistas did have such a great success and were so loved by the people, then why didn’t the people support them in the following election? Why didn’t the Sandinistas want to have another “election” then?
Got any proof for this assertion? Perhaps the Sandinistas and their economic experiments failed. The same policies failed in Cuba and in Chile, why not Nicaragua? What about the 28,000 that were killed by the Sandinistas and the 15,000 to 20,000 Indians that were “relocated?” perhaps all these factors added up. Are you still an apologist for the Sandinistas, Castro and the Vietnamese communists? Communism has failed everywhere. Ergo we are vindicated in our fight against it. Otherwise, what are you trying to say?
Actually, I would say that you already were a believer. I can only imagine how impressionable you must have been during your first ever trip out of the US and to Nicaragua! I’ll bet it was something that you were very proud of, probably a hint of danger, some adult disapproval. It must have been very heady. Then, picking coffee with the peasants, perhaps with a poster of Che Guevera in your dorm room, a new fondness for cheap cigars, the longer the better of course. No. I have met many such believers. The girls who went down to Latin America all came back Marxists. It was a temporary thing and usually resulted from the exciting love interests that they had with virile, angry young men who were so revolutionary. I can only imagine that you were attempting to fit into that mold. Anyway, it is not a crime to be young and foolish. The crime is when you don’t want to grow up and become a rational, responsible thinking adult. Hey, we all had our semesters abroad. Some came back from France wearing berets, others with phony British accents and some with communist sympathies. Groovy, but what has communism done for anyone lately?
Nice try. You seem to feel threatened by the ability to understand life through another’s perspective. Understandable. A cosmopolitan view of the world is antithetical to Republican dogma. I bet you’re the kind of traveler who just hangs out with the Fodor’s-guide crowd nursing Starbucks on the hotel patio while you muse about the melancholy nature of life in the Third World (if they only understood how superior our civilization is…). Your Social Darwinist tendencies are clear from earlier postings. Several of my friends who fought and were shot by Reagan’s made-up army did more than you are able to dream about to benefit their country. One of my friend’s father, a farmer, had his throat slit by men Reagan compared to our ‘Founding Fathers.’ Do most people living in poverty really care whether the government is capitalist or socialist? If your survival depends on your ability to catch and roast an iguana before you run out of firewood you had to walk 2 hours to get, does it really matter if you aren’t able to choose the next year’s city governor? Have the dictators the US supported really led to productive, stable societies with large middle classes? If the ‘left’ has failed so miserably and the benefits of laissez-faire capitalism are so obvious, why do Castro, Chavez and Lula still have so much support? Not that I don’t think their not good leaders, but it’s clear that the Latin America the US envisaged is not the reality. Most people I spoke with in the various countries I’ve visited there (Mexico, all of Central America and much of South America) are able to see beyond the black vs. white Republican mentality. Policies are more important than ideologies, and ideologies are not black-and-white. If the Sandinistas were communist why did they allow elections, and why did they concede defeat? How much money went into social programs under the Sandinistas? How much benefit have US-sponsored dictators really offered most of Latin America? Consequently, you shouldn’t be surprised and defensive to find a negative attitude towards US involvement in the region. Communism failed, so dictatorships are in your opinion a measure of social success? The US supported the mujahedeen, but Afghanistan was better off under the Taliban (which were only overthrown after 9/11)?
sbmoor:
I have neither the time nor the inclination to answer what are just a series of generalizations about what you think me and my motives are like.
Communism has failed everywhere. Period.
Castro is worse than every other dictator in the region for numbers of people killed or imprisoned because of their belief.
I would say the 200,000 killed in Guatemala are less about America and its involvement and more about a civil war akin to that in Colombia.
As to the rest of it, Castro should be criticized for his human rights abuses just as Pinochet was and the US govt criticized Pinochet over the whole period of his reign. Just because he was not a communist does not mean that the US supported him unreservedly. The true unreserved support is what is happening on the Left where their communist brethren can do no evil. I am surprised that you do not know about the extensive pressure the US put on many regimes regarding human rights abuses. Check it out. These were US govt reports and these issues were raised repeatedly. Try to read more than just znet and zmag. Really. Go to your library or try to find these reports on line. They are issued every year and during times when special cases merit special attention.
Castro is hardly worse than the US-supported dictators in the region! He also has far more popular support than the other dictators. That he is a dictator who is responsible for civil rights abuses can’t be denied. He isn’t an angel, but his policies and actions have been FAR more beneficial for his people than most of the US supported dictators, who were mostly power-greedy murderers willing to use any method to stay in power and suck up the country’s wealth. Castro does not live as opulently as did dictators such as Trujillo, Battista, Somoza, the Duvaliers, Rios Montt, etc. Prove that Castro was in any way worse. Typical Republican black-and-white thinking is at work here: Communist = BAD, non-Communist = GOOD or NOT SO BAD. 
What it boils down to is not really the political system - when you’re living in poverty does a vote really make any difference? How is a corrupt, ineffective ‘democracy’ any better than communism? :loco: What kind of ‘democracy’ was there in many of the countries the US supported in Latin America? You haven’t proven that the US wanted real democracy in the region as opposed to puppet dictators willing to further US business interests. Still, nice how you persevere a la Rush Limbaugh stating claims without backing them up. The fact that the US helped overthrow a democratically elected leader in Guatemala and basically supported the coup leading to Rios Montt’s bloody tenure then put no serious pressure to stop widespread massacres is proof the US did not want democracy. 
In fact, Reagan went to Guatemala and called Rios Montt “a man of great personal integrity and commitment” despite proof that he was massacring his own citizens. Yet Saddam’s massacres were somehow worse… :wanker: Wouldn’t that be a ‘civil war’ as you seem to define it? I see, these terms have meaning only when they support your distorted view of reality. Just like your apologetic view of Pinochet, whose coup led to thousands of deaths, many more thousands of cases of elaborate torture (in this regard Pinochet has very few rivals except perhaps the Catholic Inquisition), and forced over a million Chileans to flee the country. Most Chileans would probably actively disagree with you about whether Pinochet was a beneficial leader. :liar: Anyway, I’m happy you’re enjoying your daydreams.
Blah blah blah sbmoor:
What is the per capita income in Chile? What is it in Cuba? Can Chileans travel freely? Can Cubans? Is the press free in Chile? Is it free in Cuba? If you cannot tell the difference then I am very sorry for you.
Reagan blah blah blah in Guatemala blah blah blah. Why is it that only Republican presidents from the US are quoted from historical records about the polite speeches that they give at dinner receptions? I guarantee you that everyone else does it too. Why is it bad when only Reagan or a Republican does it? Find the human rights reports issued by the US administration during the same period? Surprise surprise they are full of criticism.
Why was it wrong to support anti-communist forces at a time when Russia was supporting communist ones? What should the US have done to counter Cuban and Russian involvement? Nothing?
Finally, how do you know the Cuban people support Castro? Has there ever been an election or a poll? Talk about brainwashed. I see that your friend Chavez is about to engage in some economic re-engineering in Venezuela. Why don’t you give me an example of where such policies have been successful? Maybe Zimbabwe? When will you people ever learn that rule of law is important and just because this person gets robbed today does not mean that you will not be robbed tomorrow. Finally, what does it do for overall economic growth?
Supporting a brutal dictator who murders and tortures his own people is an immoral action, especially when you claim to be supporting democracy. The US certainly did not act in the best interests of the locals on several occasions. That’s all I’m saying. The death tolls and standards of living in most of the ‘free’ countries was definitely not better than in other areas. Were most Cubans’s lives better under Batista than under Castro? By most accounts Castro has more support. Anyway, I’m surprised you really can’t see the hypocrisy. The ‘bad guys’ are always on the other side.
sbmoor:
You still do not seem to get this.
Castro is a brutal dictator.
The Sandinistas were brutal dictators.
Chavez could turn out to be a brutal dictator.
Given that we face a choice of brutal dictators and brutal dictators, at least we went with the ones that did not try to communize the economy. That way, at least only the political arena was fucked up.
Let’s look at the record of our dictators and yours. On the one hand, you have on the Left the following:
Hitler
Stalin
Mussolini
Franco
Salazar
Castro
Mao Zedong
Marxist leaders in Africa
Communist leaders in Eastern Europe
The Sandinistas
The Communist movements in Latin America
Everywhere, the communists called for property to be nationalized, the government was tightly controlled, media controlled, where you could live was controlled, your movements controlled.
Then, in this context compare the US support for say the Shah of Iran or the Right Wing Leaders of South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam and those in Central America as well.
What you don’t get is that these regions were going to have dictators no matter what. What I am saying is that the communist ones did the most damage. You keep harping on about the improvements Castro made over Batista and how the Sandinistas were better than Somoza. HOW DO YOU KNOW? The only records that the UN or anyone else has on literacy and medical care come from the very governments that lie and control and censor everything else? HOW DO YOU KNOW?
According to you. According to most Nicaraguans I met during my 4-month travels around the country and according to most accounts I’ve read about them (by both sides) the Sandinistas were one of the more progressive governments in the region that was actually doing things to educate people and benefit local communities. US-supported dictatorships rarely did this. The same with Castro. His human rights record is not as bad as other dictators in the region, and his rule has led to increased literacy rates no matter what source you choose. The medical system has won international respect given the considerable hardship the US embargo has forced on the country.
[quote]Given that we face a choice of brutal dictators and brutal dictators, at least we went with the ones that did not try to communize the economy.[/quote] So you’re saying in some cases it’s necessary to support murderous dictators. Hm. US foreign policy definitely bears out that concept. But in Saddam’s case I guess we just got tired of him and rushed through a war. And if the elections don’t work out and a fundamentalist government comes to power, will we go back and invade again? I think you’re trying to read noble intentions in a blundering, poorly scripted foreign policy that has robbed Bush of respect by most people in the world.
Yes, and life under Pinochet, Montt Rios, Stroessner, Trujillo or Duvalier was any freer or better. In fact, you will find the opposite. Torture and censorship were just as if not more difficult.
As you love to say, PROVE IT. Also take into account social programs benefitting the poor. I can’t wait to hear you dig up some more Rush-style trash on this!!! 
Fred, how can you claim to support democracy and dictators at the same time? It’s nice to see you slithering around it, but please try to answer directly. It’s a difficult thing for a Republican to do, but I think you might manage. 
According to you. According to most Nicaraguans I met during my 4-month travels around the country and according to most accounts I’ve read about them (by both sides) the Sandinistas were one of the more progressive governments in the region that was actually doing things to educate people and benefit local communities. US-supported dictatorships rarely did this. The same with Castro. His human rights record is not as bad as other dictators in the region, and his rule has led to increased literacy rates no matter what source you choose. The medical system has won international respect given the considerable hardship the US embargo has forced on the country.
[quote]Given that we face a choice of brutal dictators and brutal dictators, at least we went with the ones that did not try to communize the economy.[/quote] So you’re saying in some cases it’s necessary to support murderous dictators. Hm. US foreign policy definitely bears out that concept. But in Saddam’s case I guess we just got tired of him and rushed through a war. And if the elections don’t work out and a fundamentalist government comes to power, will we go back and invade again? I think you’re trying to read noble intentions in a blundering, poorly scripted foreign policy that has robbed Bush of respect by most people in the world.
Yes, and life under Pinochet, Montt Rios, Stroessner, Trujillo or Duvalier was any freer or better. In fact, you will find the opposite. Torture and censorship were just as if not more difficult.
As you love to say, PROVE IT. Also take into account social programs benefitting the poor. I can’t wait to hear you dig up some more Rush-style trash on this!!!
Fred, how can you claim to support democracy and dictators at the same time? It’s nice to see you slithering around it, but please try to answer directly. It’s a difficult thing for a Republican to do, but I think you might manage.
Much of this has already been posted here and under the Che Guevera thread. Go back and read it. The proof has already been offered. If you need me to go drag it out again, I will, but surely it does not take that much effort to scroll back on these threads? Let me know if you cannot handle that.
Castro not worse in terms of human rights abuses? What are you smoking? Yes, yes, we all know about the four months that you spent picking coffee with the peasants and willfully sucking in Sandinista propaganda.
Look at communist systems around the world. They failed everywhere? Can you name one success? Where has communism succeeded? Why then were we wrong to fight it? Would you like more communist systems installed? If so where?
Makes you wonder why if the Communist/Castro/Sandinista system works so well, why people are leaving and not entering. Makes you wonder why those westerners who do go to experience the joys of living under “la Revolucion!” don’t stay there.
More proof that the poltical spectrum is a circle, with the “far-left” and “far-right” overlapping each other.
Of course there were Cuban-Americans with terrible accounts of repression under Castro. Same with the stereotypical banana-republic dictators that had been working Latin America for the past 150 years or so.
What’s troubling to me is the apparent effort by the Bush administration to join this sort of bad-boys club. Abu Ghraib is disburbing enough, but with more and more information showing that the decisions to torture detainees was made from up on high, I don’t like what’s happening to my country. We’re supposed to be “land of the free, home of the brave”, not a bunch of pliers-wielding lechers.
Stalin, if I’m not mistaken most immigrants to the US are coming from developed countries. The number of Cuban immigrants is rather small, but of course this number is proudly trumpeted by Republicans as proof that the system has failed. By that measure practically all of Central Americo, Mexico and the Caribbean are failed societies. In fact, El Salvador, which has long been the benefactor of ‘benevolent’ US interests, has one of the highest rates of emigration per capita in Latin America. Why is that?
I guess the fact that you are here is proof of the ‘failure’ of the US economy. :shocker:
I guess what’s so nauseating is that Republicans are so willing to determine what is best for the world without asking locals their opinion. They think they know best, and when a murderous dictator suppresses freedom for decades by torture or massacre, they act surprised when the people highly doubt the US gov’t’s ‘altruistic’ aims and claims to be promoting democracy when in fact they promoted just the opposite. 
Fred and his klansmen are basically stating that you can promote democracy by funding dictators, and then call the ‘commies’ evil for promoting dictators.
And my favorite sound is the whiny moral Republican outrage (that’s all they’re really capable of) because the world has called them on it. :boo-hoo: Again, since Republicans can’t dance, have real (i.e. hot and randy) sex, or think outside of the 'to smoke 'em or not smoke ‘em out - that is the question’ mentality, is it really reasonable to expect a clear, coherent argument from them? :scooby:
Stop taking orders from the Death Star and wake up.
Whoops, I meant ‘developing capitalist countries,’ not from developed countries. That would be interesting.
Ah but sbmoor:
What you cannot seem to grasp is that there can be the better of two evils. Mexico is a socialist system that does not have rule of law so that’s why we get so many immigrants. Cuba is a failed political AND economic state and therefore in my book it is worse than Mexico. This is not to say that the Mexican govt cannot and should not be improved upon but why is this so difficult for lefties like you to understand that something can be worse. This is why the mindless left supported communism in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam despite knowing full well what happened in Russia, China, Hungary, Czechoslavakia, and East Germany.
Now, while we supported dictators in South Korea, would you say that the ones in North Korea are preferable or somehow morally equivalent? We did not support the shah so we got the mullahs and a lot more people died than under the Shah. Would you like to apologize for that? I will apologize for the US actions against Mossadeq if you take credit for all the many deaths and the war with Iraq that resulted directly from the shift in US policy under Carter to support human rights as an ideal in all its totality. Problem was the situation got far worse for human rights but whatever. It’s the thought that counts right?
Finally, why oh why if Cuba is this great paradise are there no free media organizations? No free travel? No elections? And yes, Castro has killed more than Pinochet and just about every other dictator in the region. The only places where more people have died is where civil wars have occurred: Colombia, Guatemala and El Salvador (and maybe for the latter).
You have a fair point regarding Duvalier in Haiti but what has come after has not been better. In fact, Haiti’s economy has continued to worsen and the country is at least on a per capita income and GDP basis poorer than it was under Duvalier. So how do we square your reasoning with this inconvenient facts?
Finally, EVERYONE had relations with Duvalier so your “US support” argument is a highly selective view of reality. Every Western European nation and many in the Communist bloc had relations with Duvalier and Pinochet and the Argentine generals etc etc. Did you not know this? And if those nations have ambassadors there and trade with these countries does that make them equally “complicit” with whatever abuses occurred there? I mean if the US is guilty then so is France, UK, Germany, Canada, et al surely? If not, what’s the difference?
Interesting questions you pose. Would a person prefer right-wing Nazis and Nazi-wannabes (Manuel Noriega’s Nazi doll collection must have been a bit embarrassing for him, looking back on his dictatorship) or left-wing commies?? Why should they choose those losers.
Americans (i.e., the sorts who don’t think Abu Ghraib refelects American values) don’t buy into this sort of hair-splitting. Dictators are all different brands of the same commodity product – leaders who care more about gaining and maintaining power than they do about the well-being of their country. Good government is a bit selfless, but that’s how the social contract works – our government only has power at the will of its people, or have you forgotten about the “a government by the people, of the people, for the people” language.
Republicans might want to familiarize themselves with some of our founding father’s writings, as well as the founding documents of our country. The Constitution might be a good start.